Entertainment
Friendster has returned! But you can only connect with offline friends.
Do you remember Friendster?
The early-2000s social networking platform has now returned roughly 24 years later with a whole new gimmick: Users can only connect with real-life friends.
The founder of the new Friendster, Mike Carson, is promoting the relaunched social media platform as being free of any ads and algorithms. But, that’s not all that’s missing either.
Friend currently exists as an iOS app. And once a user downloads the app and sets up their account, they’ll see completely blank space. Friendster doesn’t show users any posts. In fact, there are no suggestions about who to follow at all.
The new Friendster is built for users to strictly follow people they know in real-life. And the platform makes sure it’s being used that way too. In order to follow someone on Friendster, the two users need to physically tap each other’s phones while the app is open. This is the only way to connect with someone on the platform.
What happened to Friendster
Before even MySpace took off, there was Friendster.
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Friendster was officially launched in March 2002 by its founder Jonathan Abrams and is largely considered to be the first major online social networking platform. However, shortly after its launch, other social networks like MySpace quickly took off and Friendster was unable to maintain a foothold with American users.
The platform did find a significant user base in Asia and was eventually sold to a Malaysian company, before Friendster pivoted to become a social gaming website in 2011. Eventually, however, Friendster was completely shut down in 2015.
Carson, the new owner, said he noticed that the Friendster.com domain was once again resolving to a website filled with pop-up ads in 2023. Carson reached out to the new owner of the domain and found out that they had won Friendster.com at an expired domain auction one year earlier for just $7,456. Carson eventually struck a deal with the domain owner, purchasing Friendster.com for $20,000 in Bitcoin along with another domain Carson owned that generated $9,000 per year.
In a blog post discussing his journey acquiring the Friendster domain, Carson said he has plans to enable a Friends of Friends feature, that will allow users to connect solely online if they are already connected to another friend that one of the users have actually met.
In addition, Carson would like to roll out a Fading Connection feature which nudges users when they haven’t been in the same room with one of their Friendster connections for more than a year.
“Not a punishment — a gentle nudge that real friendships are kept alive in person, not online,” Carson explains.
After downloading the app, I must point out that all the nothingness makes it feel daunting to use the app. However, the new Friendster seems like a very interesting idea – if it can take off. The real challenge seems to be getting users on there to begin with, because they too will see an app with empty space until they start making real-life connections.
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Apps & Software
Social Media
Entertainment
FIFA World Cup schedule today: Games, kickoff times, livestream info for July 5
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The 2026 World Cup weekend excitement reaches a crescendo today with two heated matches: Norway vs Brazil followed by England vs Mexico.
It all kicks off at 4 p.m. ET, with the first game taking place in the United States and the second taking place in Mexico City, where the hometown fans will have the opportunity to cheer on their national team in a decisive match.
Read on to learn where and when the games are being played, as well as how best to watch them.
FIFA World Cup schedule today: July 5
How to watch FIFA World Cup games today
Watch Brazil vs. Norway
Fan-favorite Erling Haaland, Norway’s 6’5″ giant center forward, is proving himself one of the game’s most unstoppable forces, but he will have his work cut out for him against the more experienced Brazil team, led by their all-time top goal scorer, Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior. Legendary soccer manager and current coach of the Brazil team, Carlo Ancelotti, known as “Don Carlo” to the soccer faithful in Brazil, will battle Norway’s Ståle Solbakken in what is sure to be a chess-like battle of wits between the two master strategists.
Live coverage will be on Fox and Fox One. Peacock will carry the live Spanish-language coverage.
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Watch Mexico vs. England
Coming into Sunday’s match, Mexico has not allowed a single goal in the entire tournament thus far, the only team to have held their opponents scoreless going into the round of 16, but if they’re going to continue this streak, they’ll have to shut down the two-pronged attack of Harry Kane (now the nation’s top scorer in the history of the World Cup!) and top-tier midfielder Jude Bellingham, who has already racked up four goals and one assist in England’s journey to the top.
And for this match, there’s an added twist: Mexico will have home-field advantage in Mexico City, one of the loudest venues in all of soccer. ¡Olé!
Live coverage will be on Fox and Fox One. Peacock will carry the live Spanish-language coverage.
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More live streaming options
Live TV cable replacement
Not interested in signing up for a standalone streaming service like Fox One or Peacock? You can sign up for a live TV cable replacement service, like YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV.
These services carry over 100 live channels, but run off a WiFi connection. You’ll get live access to Fox and FS1, plus a whole lot more. Here are some options to consider:
Watch the World Cup for free with a VPN
It’s possible to watch the World Cup for free on international services like ITVX, BBC iPlayer, NOS, or RTÉ. Our global World Cup watch guide can walk you through the process.
You will need a VPN to live stream the World Cup on these free streaming services. We recommend ExpressVPN — a Mashable-tested service and an Official Tournament Supporter of the FIFA World Cup in the U.S., Canada, and Europe — as our VPN of choice for sport. It offers servers in 105 countries, a user-friendly app available on all major devices, a speedy connection, and up to 10 simultaneous connections.
$12.99 only at ExpressVPN
Entertainment
Marvel Icon Punished For Having A Huge Bulge
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published

Have you played Marvel Rivals? If you can get over the fact that it’s basically a reskinned version of Overwatch, it’s a lot of fun. This is a hero shooter where you take control of a character from the wide world of Marvel. There are a variety of team-based multiplayer modes; this variety, along with the fact that the game is free-to-play, keeps players coming back for more. How do the developers make money, though? Simple: they charge players for “skins” which completely change the look of the character. Many skins are modeled after famous outfits from the comics, and others are modeled after character designs in the MCU.
Whatever their original inspiration was, though, all of these skins have one thing in common: they are way hornier than you’d expect them to be. There are plenty of revealing outfits that pair perfectly with thirsty character designs that players can’t stop drooling over. Unfortunately, players recently discovered that the game had gone a little too far with Captain America’s latest summer skin. You see, the skin gave Cap a bulge so big that it messed up some of his in-game animations. This caused the Chinese developer to do the unthinkable: they shrunk Captain America’s penis, and they waited until the Fourth of July to do it!
The Battle Of The Bulge

Every year, Marvel Rivals developer NetEase Games releases skimpy summer swimwear outfits for various characters. This may seem like just a cheap way to appeal to gooner gamers, but it’s arguably a throwback to the ‘90s, when Marvel similarly appealed to horny comic book nerds with thirsty swimsuit specials. Captain America got an especially scandalous skin this summer, one that was basically short shorts and a skimpy tank top that showed off his hairy, muscled chest. Normally, fans would be panting about Cap’s thick legs and arms, but this skin made them fixate on something else: the comically huge bulge of the character’s penis.
Seriously, this thing wobbled with its own physics. While fans were both excited and scared (scaroused, if you will), some wondered if Captain America having such a huge package was an accident. Like, maybe the character model got tweaked in such a way that its pelvis was extending outward, giving the appearance of a much larger bulge. At any rate, it definitely seemed to be a mistake. In the game, Cap has an emote that echoes the recording in Spider-Man: Homecoming where he pulls out a chair and then sits in it. Previously, players activating this emote with the summer skin encountered a bug: Cap’s big, floppy unit clipping right through the chair!

Now, without making any kind of official announcement, NetEase games seems to have fixed the issue. While Captain America still has an impressive bulge, it’s not as obscenely huge as it once was. Furthermore, it no longer clips through the chair when players use the aforementioned emote. All’s well that ends well, right? Sort of. While the timing could be a coincidence, many players couldn’t help but notice how the Chinese developer waited until Independence Day to shrink Captain America’s weiner down to size. Do y’all really think this will even slow down an aroused Cap, though? It’s like the man says: he can do this all day!
Entertainment
Raunchy Cameron Diaz Comedy Now On Netflix Reminds Us How Good We Used To Have It
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published

Cameron Diaz rode the romantic comedy train until the very end. She was the breakout star of There’s Something About Mary and then kept cranking out romantic comedies for over a decade, ending with 2014’s Sex Tape opposite her Bad Teacher co-star Jason Segel. Now on Netflix, the comedy isn’t the best she’s ever done, but it does stand out as ever since, Hollywood has become allergic to the thought of a mid-budget sex romp comedy. No one’s approached YouPorn for product placement ever since.
Cameron Diaz And Jason Segel Have No Idea How The Cloud Works

Sex Tape is a different type of romantic comedy. Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel play Annie and Jay, a married couple who still love each other, but the days of spontaneous sex marathons are behind them. That leads to the idea of filming a sex tape with the goal of hitting every single position from the Joy of Sex. It works, except Jay isn’t able to delete the video afterwards. Every iPad he’s given away for Christmas has synced to the Cloud and since he set them up, his videos are accessible from each and every one of them.
That kicks off a race against time to remove the video from all of the iPads, though they admit what happened to their friends, Robby and Tess (Rob Corddry and Elle Kemper), who decide to tag along since they have nothing better to do. Sex Tape rapidly devolves from there into doing cocaine with Annie’s boss (Rob Lowe) and breaking into the YouPorn headquarters complete with a cameo from Jack Black. Despite the premise, if you enjoyed Game Night, Sex Tape hits similar beats and jokes.
The Last Comedy Diaz Made Before Her Hiatus

The outlandish plot and the audience’s waning appetite for comedy didn’t hurt Sex Tape at the box office. A production budget of $40 million was tripled during its run, and that’s not including the DVD/Blu-Ray sales of over $7 million, both of which were pushed with an “Unrated” cut of the movie. Coming in fourth in its opening weekend meant losing to Planes: Fire and Rescue, which likely stung a little. Diaz and Segel’s second outing together has been a streaming staple ever since ensuring that they’ve had the last laugh.
Sex Tape was one of Cameron Diaz’s last projects before a nearly decade-long hiatus from Hollywood. From 2015 to 2022, Diaz focused on other projects, including her businesses, raising children, and writing a book. She came back alongside Jamie Foxx in the Netflix original Back in Action, followed by the AppleTV original Outcome with Keanu Reeves in 2026. In 2027, Diaz returns to her most successful role: Princess Fiona in Shrek 5.
Romantic Comedies Have Gone Extinct

Her bread and butter, the romantic comedy, no longer exists on the big screen. It used to be that a great comedy would permeate the culture and be quoted nonstop for months, if not years. Social media has shortened the lifespan of every movie. Movies aren’t quoted as often, they don’t stick around as long with all of their best scenes and moments being spoiled all over our feeds as soon as they hit theaters. Hollywood needs to redesign the romantic comedy and the more action focus of Sex Tape combined with Diaz’s nudity was the last gasp of relevancy for the genre.
Anyone who wants a throwback to Hollywood comedies can check out Sex Tape on Netflix. Maybe someday studios will take another crack at them.
